The Spanish Rose [antikvár]

QChapter OneA SUDDEN burst of drunken laughter from the waterfront taberna spilled out onto the rough cobblestone streets and caused the slim figure skulking in the nearby alley to jump. Her blue eyes wide with apprehension, Maria Del-gato clutched the small cloth bag that contained all of her food closer to her and sank deeper into the murky shadows.Cielos! she scolded herself, now was not the time to become goose-livered! Not when she had come this far unscathed. And longingly her gaze traveled across the harbor of Seville to where the tall Spanish galleon Santo Crista lay at anchor amongst the other ships. It was her half brother's ship, and with the dawn it would be sailing across the seemingly endless expanse of the cold Atlantic Ocean to the warm waters of the Caribbean, to the Spanish island of Hispaniola, to Santo Domingo to home! Maria had to be on that ship when it sailed with the fall fleet or face exile, possibly forever, here in Spain.For a second a rush of tears stung her eyes as she thought of Hispaniola, of the lush, tropical inland valley several miles from Santo Domingo that had been home to her since she had been barely six months old. Bitterly Maria wondered about a fate that had brought her here, to this mean alley in Spain, the land of her birth, some sixteen and a half years later.The events of the past eighteen months seemed incredible to her, and even now on this warm August night of 1664 she found it difficult to believe everything that had happened in that time. The death of her father, Don Pedro Delgato, had been the beginning of it all; or rather, she